The Crack In The Door
by Bernie Boosie
Summary: I knew things were going to change, Harry had just opened a new door, staring at me through the crack between the door and wall and waiting to see if I’d open it the rest of the way and walk through... HG can Harry teach Ginny to save herself? (Part of


**Summary**: In Ginny's fifth year Harry starts giving her occlumency lessons, but is he helping her or just making matters worse? H/G drama/angst

**Rated**: PG-13 for language, and a little bit of scary substance.

**A/N**: May have to do a sequel to this. I started writing this to kind of illustrate Ginny's more outgoing, tough side and I think I've done an ok job. It's slightly H/G but not overly so I wouldn't call it a romance fic by any means. It's fairly light until the end when you get a big shock and everything gets thrown into perspective. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter or anything associated with Harry Potter.

* * *

**The Crack In The Door**

I shivered slightly smelling the sweet air of autumn, it was too late to be out, especially by myself, but I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and wrapped myself tighter in the large knit, Weasley sweater that I had borrowed from Ron. The sweater reached almost to my knees and made me feel like a little girl, I straightened, putting my head up and trying to look older and more refined. But gave up after seeing the soft shadow of myself, a black mark in the soft yellow light coming from a low window of the castle.

Something howled in the distance and for a split second I considered turning back, sneaking back up to my corridor, my safe, warm, bed.

"You said you'd come." I said to myself out-loud mainly to distract myself from the eerie silence. Just as I was saying it I felt a touch on my shoulder.

"And you did," A low voice said in just above a whisper. "Don't scream," The voice hissed as I turned around and saw the empty air behind me. And I was just about to, scream, I mean, when a hand came out of nowhere and covered my mouth, a head followed and before I knew it Harry was standing in front of me with his hand over my mouth. He moved it hurriedly and jammed his hands in his pockets and I shivered again.

We were both quiet for a second and then I finally asked:

"So, why is it that I had to sneak out here in the middle of the night for you to tell me this great and important... secret?"

"Not really secret," He replied and then ran a hand through his messy black hair. "I just want to discuss something with you... And I think it would be best if we excluded your brother in this subject for the time being." My eyebrows went up and he shook his head, the shadow of a smile playing on his face. "Not what your thinking." He concluded and I shrugged. I was grateful for the darkness as I could feel myself go crimson. Shivering I pulled my arms into Ron's sweater trying to recuperate body heat.

"Ok, so then what is so important that you have to tell me outside of the castle on a freezing cold autumn night?" I said, wanting him to get on with it so that I could get back to my warm bed.

"Well," Harry said running his hand through his hair again and then shoving it back into its pocket. I watched him struggle for the right words. "You know how Vol..." He cut himself off noticing me shudder. "Sorry, I mean, you-know-who tried to sort of... control me through my mind last year?" I nod as another shiver goes down my spine. I completely forgot about the cold as thoughts of last year filled my head. "Well, if you-know-who tries to do that again I'll be able to block him out. I know how to now. I'm taking classes, occlumency classes, But I'm afraid that when you-know-who realizes he can't control me anymore he'll try to use someone else." He said and my eyes widened as I realized what he meant.

"So, you think he'll try to tap into my mind again." I said, trying to take it all in.

"If that does happen then I would want you to tell me first and right after you get the feeling." Harry said, I started getting really fidgety, playing with the ends of my hair and not looking him in the face. "Look," He started, putting his hands on my shoulders as if to stop my fidgeting and get my attention, "I could train you if you wanted, but you have to be willing to sacrifice long, hard, and painful hours." He said, quickly jamming his hands back into his pockets and suddenly becoming very interested in his grubby old shoes. I shudder, not from the cold but from the memories of my first year.

"When you mean 'hard and painful' you mean..." I said

"Excruciatingly painful.' Harry said finishing my sentence for me and my pulse quickened, and I knew things were going to change Harry had just opened a new door, staring at me through the crack between the door and wall and waiting to see if I'd open it the rest of the way and walk through.

"I'll do it."

* * *

So here I am. Waiting for Harry to get here so we can start training. I wish he'd get here soon. I start to bite my nails as I wait.

"That's a bad habit you know." I turn around to see Harry standing in the doorway. He smiles impishly and runs a hand through his raven hair. I stop chewing on my stubby fingernails and jam my hands into my pockets.

"That's what mum says." I say, mentally kicking myself for comparing Harry to my mum. "So..." I say trying to change the subject.

"So, shall we get started?" Harry asks me as he moves a chair out of the way. "This classrooms kinda stuffy." He says pushing tables to one wall. I nod glancing around the old abandoned classroom. "Ok," he says after we're all set up "this might hurt a bit."

"It's happened before, I know what it feels like." I say, starting to concentrate on blocking everything out as Harry explained I would have to a few days earlier.

"Yeah, sorry, anyways just try to block me out. Don't let me get into your head." After explaining everything Harry takes out his wand. I bend my knees a little and clench my fist's into balls. "Alright," Harry says, "Ready?" I nod. "Legilimens!"

All of the sudden I see all of my old memories, like I'm watching them through a crack in the door of my mind. I'm a scrawny 6-year-old laughing at Ron who is running around the house screaming something about his teddy bear. I'm 10, I just saw Harry for the first time. My tenth summer and Fred and George are tormenting me about Harry. I'm 11 waking up in my dormitory covered in blood and chicken feathers. Still 11 I'm crying in the Chamber of Secrets as Tom Riddle leans over me with a malevolent look on his face. I'm 13 now staring at Harry from across the room at the Yule Ball. I'm 14 Michaels brushing my hair out of my face. My head is bulging with pain as the old classroom starts to come back into focus and the door in my head slams shut. As I realize I'm lying on the ground Harry rushes to me and helps me sit up. I put my hand up to where my head hurts.

"Ah, bugger..." I curse as I pull my hand back to reveal the red liquid that's pouring from a nasty scrape. Harry sits next to me looking nervous and tries to wipe away the blood with the corner of his robes. "Ouch, bloody 'ell." I say as he touches to close to the sore.

"Sorry," He says releasing my head and sliding backwards against the wall. "It doesn't look to deep." He runs a hand through his hair shakily.

"So, shall we have another go?" I ask, standing up and walking over to the middle of the room.

"Are you sure you want to try again?" Harry asks looking up at me. "I mean, if you're not up to it... You know, I don't even know if it's really all that good an idea," He cuts off at the defiant look on my face and lets out a sigh before adding: "I wouldn't want you to get hurt anymore." His eyes travel back to his shoes as I shake my head.

"Ok then, we'll just let you-know-who go on and control my brain. Great idea Harry." I say, rolling my eyes at him. "Now get up so we can try again." Harry sighs, a small smile playing on the shadows of his face, and stands up reluctantly.

"Listen, I just don't want you to get hurt. I'm not exactly... qualified to do this. I actually mentioned it to Professor Lupin but he said he wasn't sure if it was necessary." Harry says joining me in the middle of the room.

"Well Professor Lupin's never been invaded by you-know-who before either, now has he?" I say, bracing myself. Harry does the same as I try to clear my head of all emotion.

"Alright, you win." Harry says "You ready?" I nod and close my eyes to concentrate better. "You're sure?" Harry asks. I stand straight up and roll my eyes at him.

"Harry how many times do I have to tell you that I am?" I'm almost yelling at this point, and Harry rolls his eyes.

"Sorry." He mutters and I go back to concentrating. Before I know it I see my memories going through my head again. I do everything I can to block it out. I feel the wound in the back of my head blasting with pain. I want to scream but try to concentrate even harder on blocking Harry out. When I open my eyes I see my reflection in Harry's glasses. He's grabbing onto my arm trying to put me in a sitting position. I look around to see my leg at an uncomfortable position jammed up against a table. I'm sitting up out of instinct to see if my legs broken but half way up I think I'm going to be sick and have to let Harry prop me up the rest of the way. My hands run along the leg gingerly as Harry pushes the table away, it's not broken but something is definitely not right.

* * *

Harry canceled the rest of the lesson, despite the daggers I was shooting at him through my eyes. We sat there for about fifteen minutes after he'd said the lesson was canceled arguing, but once I'd finally tried to get up realized that it was for the best, because I wasn't able to put much weight on my bad leg without it collapsing under me. We waited until the halls were deserted to make our way to dinner so that Harry could help support me without us looking odd.

"Maybe we should go to the hospital wing before-"Harry started but at the look on my face he stopped.

"I'm starving," I said pulling myself away from him as he pushed open the door, to keep from looking suspicious.

"You sure you can make it to our table without-"

"Yeah," I cut Harry off but he looked uneasy.

"You might want to take your hair out of its ponytail," He said in a low whisper. I turned,

"Why?"

"You have a nasty bruise on the side of your face," He explained, and it was then that I realized how awful I must have looked. I yanked the hair out letting it fall around my face and crossed my arms against my chest, hiding the ugly cut on my forearm.

"You were really getting better at the end there, Gin," Harry was saying as we made our way to the Gryffindor table, me with a bit of a limp.

"Were the hell were you two?" Turning around I saw Ron staring at Harry and I "We've been looking for you forever." Ron yelled looking me up and down. "Bloody hell Ginny what did you do to yourself," He asked examining one particularly large scratch on my forehead.

"I, uh," I started struggling for a good excuse. "Well... you see..."

"Quidditch" Harry muttered trying to help me out.

"Yeah, quidditch." I said quickly to confirm that Harry's telling the truth. Ron bit his lip looking at us suspiciously.

"But we didn't have quidditch practice today, Angelina gave us the day off." Ron argued, as Harry and I slid into our spots at the table.

"Uh, well, it was a seeker thing," Harry said a bit too quickly, giving me a pointed look.

"Yeah," I piped in nodding.

"Then why aren't you all bruised up then too Harry?" Ron asked. And I got the feeling he wasn't going to fall for it.

"Pointers," I muttered quickly. "Harry was just giving me some pointers." Ron finally shrugged, accepting our excuse, but still staring at the scrape on my forehead rather suspiciously throughout the rest of dinner.

* * *

The next couple of weeks went the same. I was starting to get better at occlumency, but I was still getting bruised up pretty bad. Not to mention that I was running out of excuses to tell Ron.

"Bloody 'ell Ginny, would you just tell me the truth?" Ron asked me inquiringly.

"I told you Ron! I was walking down the crowded hallway and somebody tripped me!" I practically screamed at him for the hundredth time. People glanced over at us.

"Well that's a load of bollocks, I've known you for fifteen years Gin and I can tell when your lying to me so tell me the goddamn truth!" Ron screamed back at me. Everyone was looking at us now. Harry and Hermione rushed over to us from were Hermione was lecturing Harry about his homework, or lack thereof.

"Ron! Hush." Hermione hissed. Harry gave me a worried glance.

"Bugger off Hermione! I'll bloody 'hush' when I want to!" Ron snapped at Hermione, his face as red as his hair. Hermione looked taken aback and Ron got even more frustrated as he realized he hurt Hermione. "_Look_," Ron hissed in a quiet voice so as not to attract attention. I could feel people around us straining to hear what he was saying. "Just tell me the bloody hell what it is that you two have been doing."

Harry cleared his throat nervously and I opened my mouth to reply but nothing came out.

"What Harry and I have been doing is practicing quidditch, that's all," I finally said and Ron clenched his teeth.

"Ginny, for Christ sake-"

"It's none of your business really," Harry started and Ron whipped around glaring at him.

"None of my business? None of my business? Right, stupid Ron's all confused again, I figured because it's my _sister_ getting practically killed, that it was my business! Not to mention that it appears that my best friend is doing the killing!" He was absolutely roaring, and it was only a matter of seconds before Mcgonagall was across the Great Hall with a very severe look on her face.

"What exactly is going on Mr. Weasley?" She asked in clipped tones.

"Ask him," Ron spat turning and glaring at Harry. Harry opened his mouth shocked.

"Well, Mr. Potter?"

"It's nothing professor," I piped in as Harry's face turned a strange shade of pink. She turned and looked at me and I put on my most innocent face. "Really, they were just talking about quidditch and, well, you know how boys can be about sports..." I trailed off and Mcgonagall nodded looking back to the boys.

"Well for further discussion I would ask you to KINDLY keep your voices down, or I will have to give you detention," She said before turning on her heel and stalking away.

* * *

"Occlumency," Harry whispered once in our common room, Ron and Hermione leaned forward the four of our heads almost touching.

"You mean like the mind control stuff?" Ron asked and then his eyes widened and he looked at me. "Have you been having problems with-"?

"No," I cut in, "Not now at least, it's more of an 'in case' sort of thing."

"And you're teaching her?" Hermione asked Harry skeptically.

"Yeah," Harry said slowly, anticipating the disapproving look he was about to get.

"And did a teacher or-"

"No one told us to do it, we thought- I thought, it might be a good idea," He explained.

"And I agree, I mean, just because it's not happened since my first year doesn't mean it won't start," My voice shook slightly as I said the last bit and Ron frowned.

"Well, did you talk to Dumbledore about it, maybe it would be better if-"Hermione started but stopped, as Harry shook his head, no.

"I mentioned it to Lupin but..." Harry trailed off, and then turned and looked at me seriously. "Ginny, it was just a suggestion, and if you don't want to do it anymore... I mean I think you're getting better, but for all I know I could be making it worse-"

"Making it worse?" Ron asked sharply.

"Well, I don't think I-"

"But you don't know," Hermione broke in, "And that's what's making me reluctant about all this, I don't know if it's such a good idea Harry."

"I think it is, you guys don't know what it's like, only Harry and I do, and I don't want it to happen again and if this might stop it-"

"What if it makes it worse, what if it opens your brain more instead of closing it?" Ron put in. "You're getting physically hurt enough, Gin'. And we don't know how the connection works, he might not go after your brain, or-"

"So you're saying just stop doing it all together and hope that nothing happens?" I asked exasperatedly.

"If it was really important, a real risk, don't you think that Dumbledore would have thought of it?" the question seemed to echo in my head and by the look on Harry's face that was the end of it. No more lessons. It was settled that door was shut.

* * *

_"If it was really important, a real risk, don't you think that Dumbledore would have thought of it?"_ the words ring in my ears as I lean against the cold stonewalls of my prison.

"Why didn't he think of it?" I ask but all that I get in return is silence. I am alone, 'But not for long' I remind myself. It was only a matter of time before my visitor would come, he'd come take over my thoughts, control my senses.

**"Little Ginevra? Can you hear me? Little Ginevra, don't cry."** The words are sick too sweet like drinking honey, only to realize it's coated with poison. **"Little Ginevra, I need your help."**

But I can't help him, not anymore; I don't have to worry about it, not while I'm locked up in here, alone.

_"Ginny, are you sure... There has to be another way maybe-"_

_"Harry, shut the door and lock it, it's the only way. I can't let myself hurt anyone else... kill anyone else." The words crack in my throat and Harry runs a hand through his hair. I start to push the door shut but Harry catches the door with his hand staring at me through the crack in the door. He sighs shakily._

_"Ginny..." He starts and then stops, he reaches his hand through the gap between the door and the wall and takes my hand in his, "I'll come bring you food and-"_

_"No." The word seems to be frozen in the air and Harry grinds his teeth in his mouth angrily. "You can't Harry, you of all people, can't come here, it's too dangerous, you have to leave." _

And he did, he left. Pulling the door slowly shut; and only now do I realize how stupid we were to give up on the occlumency, how things could have been different.

I lay on the ground staring up at the cracked stone ceiling, the cracks like the own cuts in my skin. Only a matter of days, hours, minutes, seconds, before I'm gone, before that little voice in my head disappears forever, along with my own voice. And that's how it has to be.

**"Little Ginevra, you can be free, I will make you my princess all you have to do is call the boy back, call for him Ginevra and he will hear you, you know he will, you know he'll come!"** The words sting and for a second my mouth opens and I'm against the crack where the door meets the wall ready to scream for him but his name catches in my throat.

_"I can't let myself hurt anyone else... Kill anyone else."_ I sink back down to the ground feeling the dirty floor, grimy beneath my fingers.

_"You're a brave girl."_ They had been the last words he had said, right before the loud slam of the stone door. You're a brave girl. I curl myself into the corner jamming my fingers in my ears; if I don't listen will the voice stop talking?

**"You can't cover up my voice foolish girl, I am not a stupid boy I am part of you Ginevra, you know that."**

"No!" I yell squeezing my eyes shut.

**"Call him back!"** the voice roars inside my head and I feel dizzy and nauseous.

_"You're a brave girl."_ Harry's voice says and I see his face written on the back of my eyelids. _"You're a brave girl." _

"I'm brave," I say first just a whisper and then I'm screaming it so loud I feel as if my vocal chord is going to rip in two; and the voice is gone and it's just me, me alone with Harry's words, and the image of his shadowed face staring at me through the crack in the door, and I'm safe.

**"Little Ginevra..."**

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**A/N-Continued**: Please review whether you liked it or not I'd love to hear what everyone thinks and also whether I should do a sequel or not. Criticism is welcome.

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